IT CAN BE DANGEROUS TO CHALLENGE journalists to find a story that you
don't want told. They just might find it. One tale that Louis Farrakhan,
leader of the Nation of Islam, didn't want publicized was the continued
existence of slavery in the Sudan. Last March, after a 27-day "world
tour" of such anti-U.S. states as Libya, Iraq, Iran and Sudan, Farrakhan
was asked at a press conference how he could endorse the government of
Sudan when that country continued to practice slavery. Bristling, Farrakhan
challenged reporters to go to Sudan and prove that slavery still existed
there.

Two Baltimore Sun reporters Ñ one black, one white Ñ and a four-person
NBC crew accepted the challenge. Traveling to Sudan with a team from Christian
Solidarity International, the two reporting teams interviewed not only
slaves of all ages but a slave trader as well. For $1,000 the Baltimore
Sun reporters helped purchase the freedom of two slaves the trader
had brought to the village they were visiting.

Stories of the reporters' findings appeared in the Baltimore Sun
last April and on NBC's Dateline last December. Both reports confirmed
once again what has been widely known by the United Nations, by international
human-rights workers and by Christian missionary organizations for almost
a decade: 134 years after President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation
in the United States, the hideous practice of slavery is still alive and
well in parts of Africa.

Slavery in Sudan is an outgrowth of civil war. The country's predominantly
Arab and Muslim north, with a rabidly Islamic regime called the National
Islamic Front (NIF), has been waging a campaign of intimidation and coerced
Islamization against the predominantly black and either Christian or animist
south. The NIF has encouraged an Arab militia to seize villagers, especially
women and children, as war booty to be sold in the north for slaves.

One of the first journalists to expose the slave trade was a brave Sudanese
Christian, Bona Malwal. Later forced into exile, Malwal told his moving
story to me and 15 other Christian journalists from all over the world
at a conference in Jerusalem last May.

But Sudan is not the only African country where slavery
persists.

Another one is Mauritania, on the west coast of the continent. Early
in 1996, a brave Christian reporter from New York, Samuel Cotton, went
into Mauritania and interviewed both runaway slaves and anti-slavery opposition
politicians. Cotton's articles in a New York paper attracted publicity
Ñ and provoked furious opposition from the Nation of Islam. But as a direct
descendent of slaves, Cotton believes he has a moral responsibility to
expose the wickedness of modern slavery.

Fortunately, he is not alone. At a gathering in Washington last December,
representatives of an 11-member Abolitionist Leadership Council discussed
ways to move the anti-slavery campaign forward and publicize this evil
practice.

One of the most active campaigners is Charles SingIeton, senior pastor
of one of the largest predominantly black churches in America, the 12,000
member Loveland Church in Los Angeles. Singleton founded Harambee, a Christian
humanitarian organization that publishes a newsletter called COMPAS (Congress
on Modern PanAfrican Slavery) specifically devoted to ending slavery in
Africa.

"This is a cruel human rights issue," Singleton says. "We
call upon the American church to stand up for what you say you believe."

Singleton, Cotton and others follow an honorable Christian tradition.
In 1787, a devout Christian reformer named William Wilberforce wrote in
his diary that God was calling him to abolish the slave trade in England.
Just before he died in 1833, the British parliament voted to end slavery
within British territories.

Many Christian organizations such as Promise Keepers have worked hard
to keep racial reconciliation at the forefront of America's Christian agenda.
The campaign against slavery is another wonderful opportunity for Christians
to show their support for fellow believers, especially African Americans,
who are working hard to end this sinister phenomenon.

In box - The practice of slavery is still alive and well in parts of
Africa.

DAVID AIKMAN was a foreign and domestic correspondent with Time magazine
for 23 years. Today he lives with his wife, Nonie, and their two daughters
in Burke, Virginia, where he continues his career as a writer and journalist.